Paper Thin

I don’t know if I can. ~ Charlotte

You can. I know you can. You’ve got this. One foot at a time, Char. Emma needs you.

Emma did need me. I had to pull myself together.

I know. I’m going. ~ Charlotte

Take a deep breath. Everything will be okay. Emma is strong. Text or call me any time. Let me know what happens. I’ve already tracked down your professors and told them everything.

Shit. I’d forgotten about my classes. I’d forgotten about everything.

Thank you, Sadie. I don’t know what I would do without you right now. ~ Charlotte

No problem, sugar. Take care. And don’t worry about calling work either. I’ll let them know what’s going on as well.

She’d thought of everything. I was glad.

Okay, thanks. ~ Charlotte

Taking in another deep breath, I forced myself to open my car door and step out. I put my cell on vibrate, and forced all negative thoughts from my mind as I focused on putting one foot in front of the other like Sadie had said.

“Hey,” a familiar voice called out. Lifting my stare from my shoes, I spotted Dawson leaning against the wall beside the automatic doors to the emergency room. His hands were crammed into the front pockets of his cargo shorts, his hair was ruffled, and his eyes were rimmed with dark circles. He looked about as good as I felt. I took comfort in knowing I had someone to share in my misery with.

“Hi,” I said once I was a few steps away from him. “What are you doing out here?”

“Needed some fresh air.” He pressed the back of his head against the building, and straightened out his arms in front of him. I listened as he inhaled a deep breath, and then slowly blew it out. “I’m glad you’re finally here. Maybe you can get some answers, because those damn doctors won’t tell me a thing.”

“I’m sure I won’t be able to get any more out of them than you, but I’m glad I’m here too.” I wasn’t. How could I be? I didn’t want to have to be here. I wanted to be in class, taking notes or staring at Mr. Morison’s goofy clown shoes. I wanted Emma to be safe and well, doing whatever she would be on a Monday morning. That wasn’t the case though. I was here, at Easton Regional Hospital, and Emma was in a coma somewhere inside. “They really haven’t told you anything more?”

“No.” His tone was sharp and bitter. “They keep telling me her status hasn’t changed.”

This was where Emma would barge inside and demand she be told something if our roles were reversed. I couldn’t bring myself to though. Instead, I needed to wrap my mind around what we knew first.

“What happened? I know you said she hydroplaned and hit the guardrail on highway twenty-eighty.”

I could hear his sharp inhale as he prepared to retell me the story, this time in more detail. I hated seeing him in so much pain, but I needed to know. The desire to prepare myself as best I could for what I would see once I finally made it to her bedside blasted through me.

“She was supposed to make a quick trip to Walmart for a few things.” He brought a hand up and smoothed the area beneath his right eye. “Emma’s tires were bad. I knew they were. I had pla

“It wasn’t your fault.” My voice was weak and low, because I knew my words wouldn’t bring him any comfort. Once you had it in your head you were responsible for something as horrific as this, nothing anyone said could change your mind.

Dawson shifted his gaze to meet mine. His blue eyes were wild from lack of sleep and guilt swirling within them. “Maybe it was; maybe it wasn’t.” His jaw clenched tight.

I didn’t want to argue with him. I didn’t have the strength. I needed more details of Emma’s accident to paint a picture of the whole scene. “She hydroplaned and crashed into the guardrail. How fast was she going?” The words fell from my lips devoid of emotion.

“The speed limit.” A smirk twisted Dawson’s lips upward. “You know Emma, she never went more than two over the limit.”

I smiled, because my sister was such a goodie-goodie. “I know.”

“Didn’t matter though. She was still going fast enough to hit it and bounce off. The officer said she spun into the other lane and crashed into a semi-truck beside her.”

“So they put her in a medically induced coma. Why?” The question propelled past my lips on its own, even though I knew the reason why. I wasn’t stupid. Her injuries had to have been substantial. After all, she had been taken to Easton Regional by helicopter.

“She wasn’t ejected from the car. She was wearing her seat belt,” Dawson continued. Emma always wore her seat belt. It was the smart thing to do when you were riding in a car. Why was there such turmoil in his words? “They said if she hadn’t been, her injuries would have been less severe.”

I blinked. That couldn’t have been what they said. Seat belts saved lives. They didn’t take them. They didn’t cause injuries to be worse than if the person hadn’t been wearing one. That wasn’t how they worked. “Why would they say that?” Were they even allowed to?

“Because the semi-truck couldn’t stop in time. It crushed the driver’s side of her car.” I could tell the words were painful for him to say, but they were even more painful to hear. “They said if she hadn’t been wearing her seat belt, she would have been ejected when she hit the guardrail.”

“And things would have been better for her then?” I didn’t understand. Who the hell did they think they were being so damn presumptuous? “As opposed to what?” My voice shook as erratic anger bubbled through me.

Dawson peeled away from the wall, and ran his hands though his hair. “She broke her back in five places. I can’t remember all the different T numbers they spouted off to me, but I know breaking your back in general isn’t a good thing, let alone breaking it in five places. Something is messed up with her spinal cord, and she had a lot of bruising of her internal organs.” His voice was low and steady, unlike the way I was sure mine would be if I were having to explain my sister’s detailed state. “She’s got some broken ribs, her right leg was shattered, and her head was gashed open from something.”

His words wrapped around my lungs, squeezing the air from them, and making it nearly impossible for me to breathe. It sounded as though my sister was broken beyond repair.

“I know this is a lot to take in at once, but Emma wouldn’t want us focusing on the bad,” he insisted. “She would want us to think positive for her.” His words were low and hollow, making me wonder if he felt the impossibility of what he was asking.

“How can I?” I voiced the question burning through my head as my eyes filled with tears.

“It’s okay.” Dawson wrapped me in his arms, pulling me against his solid chest. The physical contact made the tears slip from my eyes. I hadn’t realized how much I needed someone to hold me. My stomach clenched as the grief I was feeling powered through me. “You can do this, Charlotte. I know you can. You’re as strong as she is. We both are. And, she’s going to need us both to get through this.” His words rumbled through his chest, making his body vibrate against mine.

We remained locked in one another’s arms for longer than we probably should, riding the waves of grief as they crashed into us one right after the other. Emma had been in a car accident. This was real.

THE LIGHTS INSIDE THE hospital room were too bright, illuminating my sister’s broken body in an eerie glow. They made the bruising on her face seem even more discolored and grotesque. I hated the lights. Emma was beautiful, but not beneath these lights. I stared at her, soaking in all the details about her. Her brown hair was tucked within the bandage around her head awkwardly, as though whoever wrapped her up didn’t care what she looked like. Her eyes were closed. If I didn’t know already that she was in a coma, I would have wondered if they were swollen shut. Tubes leaked from her mouth, held in place by scraps of tape. The thick, textured kind that always left behind its icky glue when it was removed. Not only was it slapped haphazardly across her chin, but it was on her arm as well, holding an IV in place.